Thermal imaging helps Olympic riders and their horses win medals

In equestrian sports like horse racing,
show-jumping, dressage and polo, the horse is at least as much the
athlete as the rider. Perhaps even more so, for the horse is the one
that mostly takes care of the physical exertion. Just like any other
athlete, horses can get injured, but FLIR thermal cameras help to keep
the horses healthy and ready to perform at the peak of their ability.

“Thermal imaging is a wonderful tool to spot an
injury before there are any visible signs”, says Sandie Chambers,
director of training and development for Equitherm, a company that
specializes in equine thermal imaging. “In fact, with thermal imaging
you can sometimes see injuries two or three weeks before any physical
signs and symptoms are visibly apparent.”

By detecting minute differences in the horse's thermal and neural condition, the FLIR B335 allows you to quickly and efficiently identify trauma in an injured animal

‘Discovering thermal imaging was like finding gold’

Sandie has studied both human and equine sports
science and has been the driving force behind Equitherm. Having spent
almost her entire career in Equine sports and being a seasoned
Equestrian herself, she immediately realized the importance of thermal
imaging for the equine sports industry. “When I discovered how effective
thermal imaging was in identifying trauma and stress in the horse, it
was like finding gold.”

Equine thermal imaging is a non-invasive
diagnostic tool that uses thermal imaging equipment and computer
software to detect minute differences in the horse's thermal and neural
condition. “It allows us to quickly and efficiently identify trauma in
an injured animal. By identifying the location of the injury we can
prevent further damage.” Sandie and her colleagues at Equitherm use the
FLIR B335 series thermal cameras to scan the entire horse’s body for hot
or cold spots. A hot spot indicates inflammation or increased blood
flow. Cold spots indicate a decreased blood flow, usually the result of
swelling, nerve damage or scar tissue.

Lightweight and easy to use

Sandie is very happy with the FLIR B335 thermal
camera. “It provides the kind of detailed images you need to diagnose
sport related injuries. We advise anyone who wants to use a camera in
this way to go for a resolution of 320x240 or better. With a lower
resolution you really can’t draw any conclusions as to a horse’s health
whatsoever. What makes the B335 series ideal for this kind of use isn’t
just the resolution. You can twist and turn the camera relative to the
viewfinder and that’s very useful for taking pictures of the horses
back. But the main advantage the FLIR B335 has is the fact that it’s
compact and light, which is very important when you’re working with
horses. They are animals after all and as such they can sometimes be a
little bit unpredictable. Performance horses are even more unpredictable
then the average horse, for to be able to perform at a high level the
horse has to have a strong willful character and a fiery nature,
otherwise these horses couldn’t achieve those remarkable results. But
that means that the horse can suddenly make a move towards you and if
that happens, you don’t want a big and cumbersome camera slowing you
down. With the FLIR B335 series I don’t have to worry about that, I know
I can get away because of the camera’s small size and light weight.”

You can twist and turn the B335 series to take pictures from difficult angles

When operating this close to a horse, it is important that you can get away quickly. The compact and lightweight FLIR B335 series allows you to do that. Sandie shows Rhett the thermal images of one of his horses

She’s also very pleased with the camera’s
software. “With FLIR’s Reporter software it is really easy to export the
images to a computer for further analysis. And that is very important,
because for this application you need to use the computer to filter out
all irrelevant information to be able to see the thermal patterns in
detail.”

‘Riders can feel it when there’s something wrong’

An important Equitherm client is Rhett Bird an
International Grand Prix Dressage rider and trainer. He employs
Equitherm to conduct regular checkups on his horses and is very pleased
with the possibilities thermal imaging provides. “We ride the horses
every day and sometimes we'll feel small changes in the way a horse
moves but sometimes when we take a horse to the vets they are unable to
detect anything, because they can’t perceive any symptoms. And of course
the horses can't explain that they're hurt and where it hurts, so
thermal imaging helps us by giving another insight into what's going on
inside the horse's body. For instance: we've had several horses that
started to under-perform. They didn't show any lameness, but we could
sense there was something wrong. Thermal imaging identified irregular
thermal pattern in the muscles, possibly indicating muscle injury. We
could therefore adapt our training to spare the muscles in question
without it turning into a real injury.”

But thermal imaging isn’t just a tool for
prevention; it's very useful to monitor a horse’s recovery as well,
explains Rhett. “When a horse has been injured it's difficult to know
how far you can push them without damaging them. So when a few of our
horses were injured we had them checked all over using thermal imaging
before we allowed them to start training again, just to make sure that
the symptoms were completely gone. We wanted to make sure that we could
build up the work load safely. It is good to have the reassurance that
you're not pushing the horse too much too quickly and that the problem
isn't re-occurring even in the slightest bit. Thermal imaging does just
that; it takes the guesswork out of it.”

Thermal imaging goes Olympic

It’s not just Rhett that employs Sandie’s
services. During the Beijing Olympics 2008 she was consulted by several
of the Olympic teams to provide monitoring support. “That was a very
exciting opportunity to showcase the possibilities of thermal imaging in
the equine sports. Using the FLIR thermal camera we monitored the
horses to make sure that the horses were in good physical condition and
ready to perform at the peak of their ability. The teams were very
impressed by the quality of the images the FLIR cameras produced and I’m
really looking forward to be of assistance at the 2012 Olympics.”

But it isn’t just the candidates that are in
the running for an Olympic medal that can benefit from the use of
thermal imaging, according to Sandie. “All horses stand to gain from it,
both the professional performance horses and the horses that are being
kept for recreational purposes alike.” Rhett agrees. “It makes sense
that it is used more often on performance horses, for they are generally
more expensive and they do run more risk of straining or injuring
themselves due to the intensive way they use their body, but
unfortunately all horses injure themselves. Whether the horse is in the
field or in the stable, they do seem to get in all sorts of trouble.”

During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Sandie made sure that the participating horses didn’t injure themselves.

‘Moral obligation’

One of the reasons for horses being prone to injury
is that horses aren’t built for the activities we humans have them
perform, adds Sandie. “Horses are typical flight creatures and that
means that they evolved to run away quickly when they’re in danger, not
to jump or prance about with a human on their back. Because their bodies
aren’t made for this, they are very prone to injury. That gives us
humans the moral obligation to look after them properly. Thermal imaging
allows us to do that.”

“As flight animals they also hide their
weaknesses”, continues Sandie. “If you would show weakness in the wild,
predators would pick you as a target. Horses are therefore very good at
hiding a limp for instance. And it is quite obvious that they can’t tell
us what’s wrong. But thermal imaging allows the horse’s body to speak
for itself as it were.”

Prevention: better than a cure

Equestrian thermal imaging can be a real life
saver, according to Sandie. “During a routine checkup we found that
there was something wrong with a show-jumping horse that was scheduled
to take part in a competition two days later. The horse wasn’t showing
any visible signs of an injury, it wasn’t limping for instance, but the
thermal image quite clearly showed that there was something wrong with
the left front leg. We immediately called in the vet who performed an
ultra-sound scan which confirmed my initial observation that there was
something seriously wrong: the horse had a partially ruptured tendon
right at the spot where we had found the thermal anomaly.”

If this injury would have remained
undiscovered, Sandie believes the consequences would have been
catastrophic. “Had we not picked up the anomaly in the horse’s thermal
pattern then the tendon might have ruptured completely, causing the
animal a lot of pain and distress and that would be the end of the
animal’s career as a show jumping horse. For the owner this would mean
expensive bills for both veterinary care and the subsequent
rehabilitation. It would probably also cause a big reduction in the
horse’s value and consequently a loss of investment.”

In a routine thermography checkup Sandie discovered a severe injury. There is an obvious difference in the thermal pattern between the left and right front leg.

This is the injured leg in close-up. There is a very clear hot spot indicating some kind of injury in the tendon.

The follow up diagnostics by a vet included an ultrasound scan in the location of the hot spot. The resulting ultrasound scan quite clearly shows that the tendon has been ruptured.

“It’s common knowledge that for some of these
performance horses, especially the ones that have, together with their
riders of course, won prestigious awards, the price tag can be as high
as several hundreds of thousands pounds. This case shows that thermal
imaging is a very helpful tool to protect that kind of investment.”
Sandie now uses the thermal imaging camera to monitor the horse’s
recuperation process. “We will be able to see quite clearly when it will
be ready to take part in competition again.”

Symmetry in the thermographic pattern

Using thermal imaging in this way is however
quite different from other thermographic applications. “You don’t look
at the exact temperature when you’re analyzing the thermal images of a
horse, not as much as when you’re analyzing a building or electrical
circuit. What you’re actually looking at is the symmetry of the horse’s
thermographic pattern. When I’m looking at thermal data I’m constantly
comparing left to right, for if there is an injury you’ll see an
asymmetric anomaly in the pattern. It’s only after I’ve found an
occurrence like that when I start to look at the exact temperatures, for
that might be a crucial piece of information for the vet that follows
up on my initial investigation.”

Sandie: “With equine thermal imaging you look at the symmetry in the horse’s thermal pattern”

In Sandie’s opinion thermal imaging is a unique
tool for veterinary inspection. “Not only is it non-invasive; this
means that we can investigate the horse without touching it, it is also
the most practical way to spot problems in the horse’s lower limb
tendons, ligaments and joints as well as soft tissue areas of the upper
limbs and heavily muscled areas of the upper body. With more
conventional diagnostic tools like X-ray, CT scan or ultra sound it’s
also very difficult to get to the stifles, the leg-joints that
correspond to the human knee; but these joints can be monitored very
well with a thermal imaging camera. Other areas where a thermal imaging
camera can be very useful are the feet, backs and teeth.”

unlike other diagnostic tools, thermal imaging does not involve touching the animal either physically or with some kind of radiation. It is a practical and easy to use method to diagnose injuries.

‘Not just point and click’

Another consequence of the fact that thermal
imaging is a non-invasive method, is that you can use it without a
veterinary license. But the fact that it requires no license does not
mean that you can just buy a camera and start inspecting horses,
explains Sandie. “Due to the ease with which modern thermal cameras can
be used, a lot of people make the mistake to think that using a thermal
camera for veterinary purposes is just a matter of point and click.
Don’t get me wrong, the FLIR cameras we use are very easy to operate,
but to be able to draw any conclusions from the thermal data you really
have to know what you’re doing. You have to understand, for instance,
what circumstances influence the thermal camera’s readings, like
raindrops, bits of mud, but also sunshine or a breeze coming in from an
opened window. All of these external influences we call artifacts. You
have to get rid of artifacts as much as possible to get an accurate
reading. But even if you grasp the thermal imaging part completely,
there’s still more you need to know. It goes without saying that you
have to understand the rudimentary basics of animal anatomy and
pathology, but every horse breed even has its own typical thermal
patterns that you have to take into account when analyzing the
thermographic data. And every equine sport strains the horse’s body in
different locations, so you have to know which body parts to give extra
attention to.”

Sandie’s company Equitherm provides training to
aspiring veterinary thermographers. “All kinds of people have enrolled
in our courses. Not only equine practitioners like trainers, breeders,
farriers, physiotherapists, saddle fitters and the like, but also animal
handlers in zoos as well. We’ve even been asked to demonstrate the FLIR
thermal cameras we use, and what we can do with them, to the handlers
of Longleat, the safari park in Wiltshire that’s the subject of a BBC
real life series about the daily life in the park.”

‘We’ve only scratched the surface’

Sandie also thinks that another promising
market for thermal imaging is the farming industry. “Several commercial
agricultural enterprises have consulted us. We investigated, for
example, a farm where young sheep were dying of an unknown cause. With
the help of thermal imaging we were able to prove that their coats
didn’t insulate as well as they should yet, causing them to die of
hypothermia. In another instance we were called in to check meat cows
due for the slaughterhouse on signs of infection like the rise of their
body heat. I’m convinced that we’ve only just scratched the surface of
what we can do with veterinary thermal imaging.”